Cougar Football continues to take advantage of the team’s on their schedule crushing Leavenworth 34-0.

On a cool, wet Thursday night Northwest took care of business, defeating a struggling Leavenworth team in preparation for the heart of their schedule.

The Cougars started off the game taking their second play from scrimmage in for touchdown. Senior Matt Nowak completed a screen pass to Junior Frankie Hernandez who scurried into the end zone. Hernandez was returning from an ankle injury.

After recovering an onside kick, Northwest chewed another 3 minutes off the clock with Senior Jon Hauk recording all 6 carries on the drive including a 1 yard touchdown run.

” We definitely like to run the football,” Coach Aaron Barnett said, “but whenever your balanced it helps you out.”

In the second quarter, the teams offense production slowed down. But the defense continued to stop the Pioneers running attack, and recovered two fumbles in the quarter.

” I told our kids at halftime, we’re gonna win the football. But are goal the second half is to try to improve and get better and I thought our kids did a pretty good job of that,” Barnett said.

Following the struggle to move the football offensively, Northwest opened up the third quarter with a five play drive ending with another Matt Nowak touchdown this time finding Senior tight end Alex Geis.

Nowak and the starting offense finished off their night with a 42 yard pass to Senior wide receiver Kosh Khan to start the fourth quarter.

Although the offense was efficient, the defense stood strong not allowing the Pioneers inside the red zone the entire night.

The Cougars travel back to Lawrence next week to take on the Free State. The Firebirds were the team that knocked Northwest out of the playoffs last year with a 41-21 victory.

” You wanna play the best teams,” Barnett said, “Hopefully our kids will respond to the challenge.”

Scoring Summary:

1st Quarter

SMNW: TD  Frankie Hernadez 27 yard pass from Matt Nowak (kick failed) 8:12

SMNW: TD Jon Hauk 1 yard run (Nowak kick) 5:18

2nd Quarter

SMNW: TD Jon Hauk 2 yard run (Nowak kick) 1:07

3rd Quarter

SMNW: TD Alex Geis 19 yard pass from Matt Nowak (Nowak kick) 9:42

4th Quarter

SMNW: TD Kosh Khan 42 yard pass from Matt Nowak (Nowak kick) 11:43

Stats:

Passing:

Matt Nowak 10/13 196 yards, 3 TDs

Rushing:

Jon Hauk 19 car, 78 yards, 2 TDs

KC Waterman 6 car, 18 yards

Chris Mansker 2 car, 8 yards

Levi Plaschka 3 car, 6 yards

Nick Caldwell 1 car, 6 yards

Receiving:

Kosh Khan 1 rec, 42 yards, TD

Chris Mansker 3 rec, 34 yards

Frankie Hernandez 1 rec, 27 yards, TD

Jon Hauk 1 rec, 27 yards

Kenny Mings 1 rec, 20 yards

Alex Geis 1 rec, 19 yards, TD

Nick Caldwell 1 rec, 16 yards

Kent Hollingsworth 1 rec, 11 yards